May 1, also known as Labour Day, came into prominence as early as the latter half of the 19th century with revolutions, supported by industrial workers and farmers due to crop failure in the 1840s. In 1889 the Second International, a united outfit of socialist parties declared May 1 as International Workers’ Day.
In India, May Day was reportedly first celebrated in 1923 in Madras. Leader of the Labour Kisan Party of Hindustan Singaravelar held two meetings at Triplicane Beach and near the Madras High Court. A resolution was passed asking the then British rule to declare May 1 as a holiday on account of being ‘Labour Day’. The red flag was also unfurled for the first time here.
Keeping in mind the significance of the day, here are a few quotes to keep the revolutionary fire alive:
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- Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.
― Vladimir Lenin - Unity is a great thing and a great slogan. But what the workers’ cause needs is the unity of Marxists, not unity between Marxists, and opponents and distorters of Marxism.
― Vladimir Lenin - “When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms, and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.
In place of the old bourgeois society with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
― Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto - The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands – the ownership and control of their livelihoods – are set at naught, we can have neither men’s rights nor women’s rights. The majority of mankind is ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease.
― Helen Keller, Rebel Lives: Helen Keller - Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
― Adam Smith - Fear of the mob is a superstitious fear. It is based on the idea that there is some mysterious, fundamental difference between rich and poor, as though they were two different races… But in reality, there is no such difference. The mass of the rich and the poor are differentiated by their incomes and nothing else, and the average millionaire is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit…
—George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London - The Revolution introduced me to art, and in turn, art introduced me to the Revolution!
― Albert Einstein -
We are convinced that liberty without socialism is privilege, injustice; and that socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality.
― Mikhail Bakunin
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Labour day is a great American holiday that people celebrate by going out and buying products made in China.”
― David Letterman
- If suddenly the whole workers of the whole world disappear then the whole world will stop!
—Mehmet Murat Ildan - Deep pockets and empty hearts rule the world. We unleash them at our peril.
― Stefan Molyneux
- Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.